We set up a writing center in our playroom today. Sam is on summer break and we wants to do some 'school work' each day.
I am using the printables from one of our Writing Packs to engage him in a structured week of writing in this center. We will do one small part each day and by Friday have a published piece of writing - How to build a sandcastle.
I made a banner for the writing center from our Pencil Letters pack. We used our KMart Market Stall - but honestly, in the classroom a desk/shelf combo would be more practical.
This is just one style of writing instruction. I would urge you to encourage your students to also engage in plentiful free and creative writing to complement structured, focused projects like these.
The week will be:
Sunday - brainstorm
Monday - plan
Tuesday - draft
Wednesday - edit
Thursday/Friday - publish
We will do our best to keep you updated on each stage - catch us on Insta stories too.
Brainstorming for writing
To begin I introduced Sam to our focus for the week - by Friday he will have a published procedural text to show his sister how to build his ultimate sandcastle design. His sister needs to be able to read the text and carry out his instructions.
To begin the brainstorming process we looked at photos from times Sam has built sandcastles. I printed these and put them in the writing center.
We looked at each and talked about them. I had to guide Sam here and said things like:
- how did the sand feel
- what did the sand look like
- close your eyes and describe the sandcastle
- how did you start building this sandcastle
We recorded many of the words Sam used on a whiteboard from the writing center. Later in the week I will encourage Sam to add more descriptive words to turn these into phrases. In the classroom, make an anchor chart of useful words. You may not have access to student photos so just do a google image search for sandcastles and look at them and talk about them.
I also placed some theme items on the writing center to trigger thoughts and memories - shells, a bucket and spade.
We read Grandpa and Thomas by Pamela Allen (not a sponsored link, just helpful). It is a firm favorite for many little learners and has a great story sequence revealing some simple steps for building a sandcastle and helping readers to make connections to their experience with a day at the beach.
Sam completed the first page from our writing pack, the brainstorming page where he drew a picture of his design. He labelled it also. Before the drawing I encouraged him to act out the steps in a little drama based role play - this helped a lot!
He has not noticed how pear-like his sandcastle is - I think it's gorgeous!
Tomorrow we will break this illustration down into steps on the planning page!
We just released 2 new packs in the Writing Pack series.
Find them in our TpT store by clicking on the images below:
Having a clear structured week for writing and a project based goal for students to work towards can make planning for writing instruction simple and exciting. Let us know your best tips for writing centers too!
We'll see you tomorrow for the planning stage!